While numerous press articles try to portray the situation as out of control, and thus grease the skids for the British-planned military intervention and overthrow of the Assad regime by radical Muslim Brotherhood elements, and even Al Qaeda, the head of the UN Observer Mission in Syria, Major General Robert Mood, told Al-Akhbar the situation in Syria is calm.

General Mood said the UN Observer Mission has 157 civilian and military monitors distributed in the governorates of Saraa, Idleb, Hama and Homs. On May 12, Mood said, "There are more than 50 countries involved in the mission, and we are working to help the Syrian people—who fully understand that we are working to help them." Gen. Mood added that the Syrians have shown remarkable hospitality, even bereaved families who lost loved ones."

It is clear that Russia and other sane nations understand that the only viable option in Syria is incremental movement toward political reconciliation and reform spearheaded by the Syrian government and closely monitored by Annan's UN Mission, Tehran, Beijing, and Moscow. The alternative is the escalation of violence that will increasingly include foreign jihadists, which is likely to spill over into the broader Middle East, according to Sharmine Narwani in a long analysis in Al-Akhbar on May 9.

In fact, on May 8 Syria's representative at the United Nations, Bashar al-Jafari, provided the Security Council with a surprise CD containing confessions from more than two dozen jihadists, placing the UN on notice. Today's Washington Post has discovered that the Muslim Brotherhood is all over the opposition.